SpongeBob's Stuck Sneeze
by PrincessSara1998
Summary: When SpongeBob has a little trouble trying to sneeze, he asks Patrick to help him. I've actually had this idea for a while, I just never got to write it until late 2016.


It seemed like a normal day of work at the Krusty Krab. Squidward was manning the cash register while SpongeBob was in the kitchen, happily working the grill.

"Man, these patties sure smell good..." SpongeBob said to himself as he smelled the sweet aroma of the Krabby Patties that he had been cooking.

When they were almost done, however, his nose itched slightly, and he noticed this almost as soon as it happened. He sniffed once and rubbed his nose on his arm, and the itch slowly went away. Feeling satisfied, SpongeBob finished the patties, put them on clean plates and put them on the serving window, right behind Squidward.

"Order up!"

"Whatever," Squidward responded in a deadpan voice.

He proceeded to serve the Krabby Patties to the customers in front of him. As he was doing this, however, SpongeBob could feel his nose starting to itch again. He tried rubbing his nose again, but this time, it didn't seem to work. The itch steadily started to increase in intensity, until SpongeBob felt as though he needed to sneeze. He began to inhale a few times, making sure to turn away from the grill, even though he hadn't taken the next order yet.

"Aaahh... Haaa-aaah..."

"SpongeBob, I need more Krabby Patties!" Squidward said as he stuck his head through the serving window.

Hearing him caught SpongeBob off-guard, and he didn't get to finish the sneeze. He turned back to the grill. "Yes, sir!"

With that, he resumed cooking. He was slightly mad at Squidward for interrupting his sneeze, but he couldn't really complain. For the rest of the day, SpongeBob tried his best to deal with his still itching nose. He occasionally had to sneeze and inhaled to do so, but he never actually got to release it. He saw that as a miracle at first, but as the number of hungry patrons in the Krusty Krab decreased, it started to become a problem. He didn't think he had any allergies, and he didn't get sick too often, so he didn't know exactly why he had to sneeze.

After the work day was over, SpongeBob left the Krusty Krab and decided to go straight to Patrick's house. Patrick wasn't the most trustworthy friend he had, but he really hoped that he would know how to make him sneeze.

Once SpongeBob had made it there, he approached Patrick's rock and knocked on it a few times. The rock automatically lifted itself upwards, like a chest being opened up, and revealed Patrick, who was lying on the underside of the rock.

"Hey, SpongeBob," Patrick said. "What's up?"

"Patrick, can I come inside? I need you to help me with something," SpongeBob responded.

"Sure, come on in."

SpongeBob did as he was told, and the rock then closed up again. Patrick got up from the underside and landed in front of SpongeBob.

"So what's wrong?" Patrick asked.

"I don't really know how to say this," SpongeBob said. "I keep needing to sneeze, but I just can't sneeze."

"Really?" Patrick almost sounded surprised.

"Yeah. One minute, I'm breathing in over and over, and acting like I'm gonna sneeze, but the next minute, it just goes away so that I don't sneeze. It's happened to me a bunch of times today, and it's pretty annoying."

Patrick laughed in response. "Oh, I know what's wrong! You've got a stuck sneeze!"

"Really? How'd you know?" SpongeBob asked, as if he had never heard of the term before.

"We've all had that happen to us," Patrick explained. "Heck, even me."

"Well, what do you do when you have a 'stuck sneeze?'"

"I just find something to make myself sneeze, and if it works, then I don't have a stuck sneeze no more. Don't you worry, buddy. I'll see if I can't get that stuck sneeze out of you. Be right back..."

Patrick then went into the kitchen, leaving SpongeBob alone in the living room. From here, he could hear the sound of Patrick opening the cupboards in there and searching for... something.

After a couple of minutes, Patrick found what he was looking for and said, "Aha! Here it is!"

Patrick pulled the object out of the cupboard and then left the kitchen, not bothering to close the cupboards. He went back into the living room, where SpongeBob was still waiting for him.

"I found what we need," Patrick said as he revealed the object. It turned out to be a shaker with a small amount of black powder in it.

SpongeBob's reaction wasn't quite as positive as Patrick expected, however.

"Oh no! Not... that!" SpongeBob said, sounding almost terrified.

"What?" Patrick asked. "It's just pepper."

"Patrick, please don't use that stuff on me. Do you even know what's gonna happen?!"

"Yeah, I do," Patrick responded. "You're just gonna sneeze. It's not like something bad could happen."

"Patrick, you don't understand! Whenever I sniff pepper, I sneeze really, really hard and loud! I could even hurt somebody!"

"Oh." Patrick seemed to understand what SpongeBob was trying to warn him about, but he didn't seem to accept it. "But didn't you say that you had a stuck sneeze? How about I just put a little on your nose and see if it doesn't make you sneeze?"

"Well..." SpongeBob thought about it for a moment. "Okay, but please be as careful as you can. I'll warn you if it works."

Patrick held the pepper shaker in his hand, moved it directly over SpongeBob's face, and started to shake pepper onto his nose. SpongeBob looked horrified as this was happening, as though he knew exactly what was going to happen. He tried not to breathe at first, but he accidentally sniffled and sent a small amount of pepper directly into his nostrils, which started to burn and flare up. A few seconds later, Patrick decided to stop and pulled the shaker away from SpongeBob. The sponge's eyes watered slightly as he put his hands over his nose in pain.

"Well? Do you need to sneeze yet?" Patrick asked.

"No, but I feel like my nose is on fire..."

"Oh, that's no big deal. Just wait a little bit and-" Patrick didn't get to finish his sentence.

"Uh-oh!" SpongeBob suddenly removed his hands from his nose, which had begun to twitch uncontrollably. His eyes, watering even more, were starting to twitch as well.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Patrick asked.

SpongeBob wanted to speak, but the pepper had made it into his nasal passages, and it was beginning to take control of his body. The most he could do was state exactly what was wrong with him.

"Don't... feel so good..."

SpongeBob sniffled again, trying to stop his nose from itching, but the amount of pepper made it further into his nasal passages and irritated them even more.

"Nose... burning."

Patrick could see the sponge's nostrils reddening slightly as they flared up fiercely. He could also see his eyes filling with sneezy tears; maybe not as much as when he cried, but quite a lot.

"Eyes... watering."

Shortly afterward, he tilted his head back slightly as he started to take a few involuntary gasps.

"Bre-heh-heath... hih-hitching..."

"Oh, no. Are you gonna..." Patrick started to ask, but SpongeBob didn't have the patience to let him finish.

"I'm... going to... sneeze!"

Those four words caused Patrick to become even more concerned. He backed up, trying to get out of the way, as SpongeBob began to inhale repeatedly. After what felt like countless seconds of pre-sneeze warnings, he was finally entering the buildup.

"Haa-aaa-aah... Aaah... Aaa-aaa-AAAH..." He tilted his neck farther and farther back. "Aaaa-aaaah... Haaaah..."

The urge to sneeze seemed to get stronger and stronger with every inhale that SpongeBob took. But he didn't try to stop it from coming, because he was pretty sure that that wouldn't work. And besides, his stuck sneeze had already been bothering him for most of the day. He had to accept that this sneeze was coming. It was going to be huge, but it would also provide sweet relief.

"Haaa-AAAAHH... HAAA-AAA-AAHHH... AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAAHHHHH..."

Patrick looked around the room, trying to find a place to hide. He didn't have much time before the sneeze would finally escape. He soon decided to run behind an easy chair that he had in the room. It probably wasn't enough to fully protect him from the upcoming sneeze, but he didn't have any choice in the matter.

"HAAAAAAAH... AAAAAAAAHHHHHH..." SpongeBob inhaled repeatedly as he fanned his hand in front of his face. It appeared as though he didn't want to release, but on the inside, his entire body was begging and pleading for the sneeze to escape. He tilted his head and neck as far back as possible as he took a final dramatic inhale, hoping it would be enough for the sneeze to defeat him. And just like that, it finally came.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

SpongeBob finally released the sneeze, and it was just as loud and powerful as he had explained earlier. In fact, it was so powerful that he ended up blowing himself off his feet and into the wall behind him. Almost immediately after that, he bounced off that wall and into the other walls, and so on. Once this had started, he kept doing it for at least ten seconds. He didn't even notice it happening, since the sneeze was so strong that it almost made him lose consciousness. Patrick, who was already overwhelmed when he heard the sneeze, could only look on in worry as his friend ricocheted around the room.

Eventually, however, SpongeBob landed back on the ground just as he regained consciousness. The sneeze that he had just let out had blown out every bit of pepper from his nasal passages, but it was super painful. He didn't even seem to remember what had just happened; all he could remember was everything before the sneeze. He sat up, sniffled once and rubbed his nose on his forefinger. It almost looked adorable to see him do that. He didn't seem to care at first when Patrick walked up to him, but then he spoke.

"Gesundheit," Patrick said.

The moment he said that, SpongeBob remembered something important. The attempt to sneeze had worked, and as a result, the stuck sneeze had finally been taken care of. SpongeBob immediately smiled and stood up.

"Patrick, you did it! It worked!" he said.

"All right!" Patrick responded.

"I never thought I could ever get that sneeze out of me. Thank you so much!" SpongeBob said as he hugged Patrick, who returned the favor.

"You're welcome," Patrick said.

"Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"Don't worry about that, buddy. I'm here for you anytime."

"Well, that's about all I wanted your help for. I'm gonna go now," SpongeBob said as he let go of Patrick.

Outside, the rock opened up and SpongeBob stepped out.

"See you tomorrow, Pat!" he said as he started to leave.

"Uh, SpongeBob?" Patrick asked. "Before you go, I wanna give you something real quick."

"Really?" SpongeBob immediately turned around. "Okay."

Patrick reached behind his back and gave him a box of tissues.

"That was some sneeze. You're gonna need these in case you do another one of those."

"Aw..." SpongeBob blushed in response. "Thanks, Patrick."

He then headed home as Patrick stood close to his rock, waving goodbye to him.


End file.
